Rafael E.

Rey
Communication 2150-002
05-07-2014
Striving for Engaged and Effective Intercultural Communication
Chapter 12









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Now that I am near the end of this wonderful and interesting semester, I would
like to finish this paper by informing my audience of the skills, experience and
information I have learned with Dr. Marlin Clark. In his class we have covered many
topics, class activities, three amazing guest speakers that shared their experience with the
world. I would like to provide you with some of the information that I have learned from
this final chapter. As it is quoted, the only time you should ever look back is to see how
far youve come, (Unknown quotes). By saying this, I would like to review with you
that the beginning of this chapter we began with social science approach, identifying
specific components of competence: motivation knowledge, attitudes behaviors and
skills. And finally, we continue our dialectical perspective, combining individual and
contextual elements to offer specific suggestion for improving intercultural relations by
building alliances and coalition across cultures.
On what the professors have identified I have been able to acknowledge the four
basic components, which are: motivation, knowledge, attitudes and behaviors. In the four
basic components they are all linked together. You cannot have motivation without
behavior, attitude, and knowledge and it goes the same for the other three components.
Intercultural communication competence may rely on individuals competence, but
context is also important. With motivation, my component of intercultural
communication competence helps with the desire to make a commitment in a
relationship, to learn about the self and others, and to remain flexible. If we are not
motivated to communicate with others, it probably does not matter what other skills we
possess. It might be the fact that I want to influence the people around me with the
knowledge and skills I have learned. When you have ignorance around, it makes it one
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reason that members of large, powerful groups often think they do not need to know
much about other cultures; there is simply no incentive. In contrast, people from less
powerful groups have a strong incentive to learn about and interact with more powerful
groups.
One of the other basic components of competence is knowledge and I cannot
really grade the importance of each one. With knowledge, you at least have to know
what you are talking about as an individual component of intercultural communication
competence. The quality of knowing about oneself, others, and various aspects of
communication involves what we know about others and ourselves about various aspects
of communication. With knowledge comes different types of categories, which are: self-
knowledge, other-knowledge, and linguistic knowledge. Self-knowledge is related to
intercultural communication competence, the quality of knowing how one is perceived as
a communicator, as well as ones strengths and weaknesses. With other-knowledge, it can
relate to self-knowledge, but is more based about how people from other cultures think
and behave that helps you be a more effective communicator. For example, when I want
to talk about basketball I have to know players, coaches, staffing and general manager.
But knowing your audience or the individual you are speaking with is important as you
need to know where they are coming from.
Lastly, linguistic knowledge is knowledge of other languages besides ones native
language or of the difficulty of learning a second or third language. Of course we cannot
know everything about all cultures or develop relationships with people from all cultural
groups, but its important to get an understanding to prevent a discomfort environment.
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For example, my girlfriend has a language barrier coming from an Armenian
background, whereas Im from a Colombian background. It is two different origins of
language trying to understand and comprehend with one another when we are
communicating.
The more experiences with other people from different backgrounds, the more I
will be able to respect and understand other people. This also helps me to avoid
stereotyping. Perhaps it is better simply to be aware of the distance in thought and
behavior across cultures and not to assume that because someone belongs to a particular
group, he or she will behave in a particular way.
Many attitudes present intercultural communication competence, including
tolerance for ambiguity, empathy and Nonjudgmentalism. Tolerance for ambiguity refers
to the ease in dealing with situations in which much is unknown. It is also one of the most
difficult things to earn. People have a natural preference for predictability; uncertainly
can be annoying. Empathy refers to the ability to know what it is like to feel a similar
pain for others. Its a Greek word for feeling sorry for others but we cannot really view
the world through another persons eyes without knowing something about his or her
experiences and life. For example, a man cannot know what a woman goes through
when she is on her menstrual cycle, but we can get them cupcakes and make them feel
comfortable by empathizing.
Empathy is also the quantity to imagine a person in another role, within the
context of ones cultural identity. Attempting to come up with a more culturally sensitive
view of empathy is difficult to achieve when people come from very different cultural
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backgrounds. I feel that on the build of empathizing with different cultures, we tempt to
postmodern circumstance that often involves trying to learn foreign beliefs, assumption,
perspective, and feeling in a foreign context. Being Nonjudgmentalism is the hardest part
to achieve. Nonjudgmentalism is free from evaluating according to ones own cultural
frame of reference. We have been guilty of saying that we do not judge others to our
colleagues, family, and friends. For example, it is hard not to be judgmental about my co-
workers. At times I catch myself thinking they are not capable of doing the simple tasks
that they have been asked to do and are being lazy. It is difficult to understand what they
are going through outside the work place or what cultural environment they were living
in to make them the way they are. I was wondering if there was a type of way to prevent
or improve a nonjudgmental way to discover, and came across an exercise that helps in
developing a nonjudgmental attitude which is D.I.E. This involves making a distinction
between description (D), interpretation (I), and evaluation (E) in processing
information. This exercise can help us recognize whether we are processing information
on a descriptive, or evaluative level. Confusing the different levels can lead to
misunderstanding and ineffective communication. As humans we develop behaviors and
skills to help with the D.I.E. exercise.
Behavior and skills are another component of intercultural competence. Some
behaviors are a display of respect, interaction management, ambiguity tolerance,
empathy, relational rather than task behavior, and interaction posture. One expresses
respect behaviorally may vary from culture to culture and from context to context. For
example, in my culture when greeting someone you shake hands and place a kiss on the
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cheek. In an American culture, I have noticed when you try and approach someone with
this behavior they often get offended.
Intercultural communication competence means being able to exhibit or adapt to
different kinds of behaviors, depending on the other persons or groups cultural
background. A renowned communication scholar, William Howell, suggested that the
most competent intercultural communicators are those who consciously acquire
knowledge, but who also strive for an unconscious competence(is the be yourself
approach, in which we are not conscious of differences and do not need to act in any
particular way. William Howell, a renowned intercultural scholar, identified four levels
of intercultural communication competence: unconscious, conscious incompetence,
conscious competence, and unconscious competence. Unconscious incompetence is the
be yourself approach, in which we are not conscious of differences and do not need to
act in any particular way. Conscious incompetence, people realize that things may not be
going very well in the interaction, but they are not sure why. A conscious competence
instruction focuses on analytic thinking and learning. Is a necessary part of the process of
becoming a competent communicator. Unconscious competence is the level at which
communication goes smoothly but is not a conscious process.(479p)
An important aspect of being a capable communicator understands the context in
which communication occurs. As a Colombian American, it is very important to build
rapport with co-workers, bosses and students to have a friendly environment, and make a
simple paying bills and put food on the table job a pleasant job. They found that
intercultural competence in this context involved getting to know the cultural identities of
their patients, something that most physicians did not think was essential in their job. A
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final note about language mediated contexts can make it easy to communicate between
persons not sharing a native language, since they have more time to interpret and
understand the other (the text/words are durable), as well as time to phrase their own
messages (Osman & Herring 2007).
A critical perspective reminds us that individuals competence may be
constrained by the political, economic, and historical contexts. The point is that powerful
groups are not likely to focus on these issues, and yet they must be taken into
consideration when trying to understand the dimensions of competence. We need to
understand that notions of communication competence depend on specific social,
political, and historical contexts, and we need to question why is setting these standards.
Perhaps the first step in applying our knowledge to intercultural communication is to
recognize the connectedness of humans and the importance of dialogue.(482-483p).
A focus on mutual listening, instead of talking, forms the core of successful
intercultural dialogue. For example, it makes it difficult for me to communicate with
others, because I have to translate from my first language to my second language. Even
though listening is easy for me, talking is not and makes my dialogue harder. The
listener hears the messages, considers it, and reconsiders it, trying on different possible
interpretations trying to understand the speakers possible intent. As you think about all
the messages you hear every day, the most obvious voices and images are often the most
privileged. To resist the tendency to focus only on the loudest, most obvious voices, we
should strive for harmonic discourse.
We need a new way to think about multiculturalism and cultural diversity one that
recognizes the complexities of communicating across cultures and that addresses power
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issues. The goal is to find a way in which we can achieve equitable unity despite holding
many different and contradictory truths, a unity based on conscious coalition, a unity of
affinity and political kinship, in which we all win. Intercultural alliances: bonds between
individuals or groups across cultures characterized by a shared recognition of power and
the impact of history and by an orientation of affirmation.
Coalitions can arise from multiple identities. Local coalition works to promote
dialogue between blacks and whites, and between gays and straights. The rhetoric that
people use to mobilize coalitions speaks to me in various ways. These shifting identities
allow me to build coalitions among seemingly different people, to foster positive
intercultural relationships for a better world. Coalitions, which are built of multiple
identities, are never easy to build. In the process, you may find that some of your own
identities feel neglected or injured. Part of the process is the commitment to work through
these emotional blows, rather than simply withdrawing to the safety of older identities.
The first step in working for social justice is acknowledging that oppression
and inequities exist as we have tried to point out cultural differences are not just
interesting and fascinating, they exist within an hierarchy in which some are privileged
and set the rules for others (Allen, 2004).
Forgiveness has been linked to a train. People get on the train, but must make
various stops before forgiveness becomes a way off. The trick is not to miss your
stop. Forgiveness is an option when transgression of one cultural group on another is too
brutal to understand. The future of our world may well rest on our ability to control
revenge and promote forgiveness. We have shown that we can learn to do the right thing
to learn where and when to seek revenge and when to forgive by watching those who
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demonstrate forgiveness leaders, teachers, and parents.
It is hard to predict the future that we live in especially when a good share of us
lives in the term of Ill do better tomorrow, than I did today. With that said we cannot
change the future but we can change tomorrow. The global economic situation remains
troubling. It does take time to fix it. It all starts with educating each other from better
communication skills, and understanding the political grounds. The future holds global
challenges for intercultural communication in political, military, and economic contexts.
The decision we make now reflects the future of our kids and the legacy we leave behind.
In conclusion, it will always be challenging when dealing with intercultural
communication in political, economical or social. It is important to have all the skills
discussed in chapter 12 when dealing with other cultures.








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Word Cites
Martin, Judith N. and Nakayama, Thomas K.,-Intercultural Communication in Contexts
sixth edition- 2013.

http://www.searchquotes.com/quotation/The_only_time_you_should_ever_look_back_is
_to_see_how_far_you've_come./320805/